Born in 1994 to parents with a boundless record collection and multifaceted languages of love towards music, Lex Korten discovered a personal relationship with the work of greats Duke Ellington and Jaki Byard at an early age. His childhood in Manhattan’s Upper West Side allowed him to pursue mentorships with several decorated pianists and achieve modest accolades in the national high school circuit, but it wasn’t until Korten moved to Ann Arbor, MI to study with Geri Allen that his path began to bend more trustfully towards a musical career. By the time he earned his BFA and relocated homeward, Korten had spent 4 years as an apprentice of the great legacy of Detroit Jazz and experimental music, while also completing two years of close mentorship with Benny Green and others at the University of Michigan.

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Korten’s first steps into the spotlight came in 2018 with a life-changing appointment to the piano chair of Tyshawn Sorey’s newly formed “Unfiltered.” sextet which toured and recorded intermittently for the following four years to notable acclaim. During this period, Korten won 1st prize in the UNISA International Piano Competition in South Africa and began cementing a reputation among his peers in New York as a valuable sideman and promising composer, bringing his first projects to The Jazz Gallery in Manhattan where he continues to perform today.

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Since the pandemic, Lex Korten’s emergence into the echelons of the Jazz world has become ever more rapid and difficult to ignore. The list of renowned artists seeking Korten’s contributions over the last few years has become long and impressively diverse, including the likes of Jaleel Shaw, Melissa Aldana, Joel Ross, Tyshawn Sorey, Robert Hurst, Caroline Davis, Mike Moreno, Ari Hoenig, Fay Victor, Dayna Stephens, Jonathan Kreisberg, Joe Farnsworth, Joe Martin, Massimo Biolcati, Ben Solomon, Ndabo Zulu, John Ellis, Chris Turner, Joel Harrison, Or Bareket, Lage Lund, Nick Dunston, Tivon Pennicott, Luther Allison, DoYeon Kim and Clarence Penn to name a few. Korten’s touring schedule yearly reaches a dozen or more US states and worldwide clubs and festivals, in between which he teaches lessons at The New School or privately at his home in New York City. In addition, Korten has given lessons and classes internationally to students from Greece, Germany, South Korea, South Africa, Mexico, Argentina, Switzerland, China, Malaysia, Australia, the United Kingdom (at the Royal Academy of Music in London) and at several universities in the USA. His performance credits include an extensive list of esteemed theaters such as The Kennedy Center (Washington, D.C.) or Teatro Amazonas (Manaus, Brazil) and international festivals (North Sea, Montreal, Earshot, etc).

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Perhaps most notably of all, and most enduringly, Lex Korten has defined the first decade of his career by his immersion in his own generation’s forward pushing activity in a way that sidesteps traditional barriers between scenes and styles. Among his 30+ recording credits are projects representing a thorough cross section of the 21st century’s rising leaders in improvised music; names like Simon Moullier, Milena Casado, Zoh Amba, Nicola Caminiti, Tyrone Allen, Ben Tiberio, Claire Dickson, Alden Hellmuth, Morgan Guerin, Alex Hitchcock, Dave Adewumi, Sasha Berliner, Alfredo Colón, Linda Sikhakhane and more. Korten’s own bandleading projects include the Lex Korten Trio and Quartet as well as Canopy, an experimental 5-member ensemble. Lex Korten’s long anticipated debut original album Canopy released on September 19th, 2025 to critical acclaim from outlets including The Wire Magazine (UK), WNYC, PopMatters, JazzTimes and DownBeat.

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Lex Korten currently is an active bandleader in New York City, bringing his projects to stages at Lincoln Center, Mezzrow, Smalls, The Jazz Gallery, and across a blossoming roster of great Jazz clubs in Brooklyn while also appearing at experimental venues including Roulette, National Sawdust, LPR and The Stone.

 

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As a native New Yorker, Lex is an avid student of NYC's history through the present day, and otherwise interested in urban geography as well as graphic design, cooking, world history and film. While a student at the University of Michigan, Lex double majored in Political Science, taking additional coursework for 2 years at the Ford School of Public Policy.

 

 

Some of Lex's favorite composers active in 2026 include Angel Marcloid (as Fire-Toolz), Ramona Andra Langley (as Vektroid), Daniel Lopatin (as Oneohtrix Point Never), and Cryptovolans as well as a countless list of improviser peers worldwide.